One. Two. Three. Four.

I counted my steps, watching the shoelace of my Chuck Taylor flop as I maneuvered through the crowded terminal. I was pretty sure the Atlanta airport is the inner circle of hell… too many people. Too many smells and crying children. My shoulder bumped into someone and I mumbled sorry beneath my breath, but I refused to look up. As much of an ungrateful ass as it may make me sound: I didn’t want to take another selfie or sign another autograph. Honestly, I was only touring to keep myself occupied. To keep myself from missing her…

A boom of thunder rattled the building, the large windows overlooking the tarmac shook, and the people hurrying to their flights stopped in the middle of the terminal to exchange nervous glances. I looked through the window just as a bolt of lightning streaked through the sky. “Great,” I groaned and continued to weave through the swarming concourse.

On about step twenty-seven, I tripped on my lace, catching myself before my chin slammed against the tile. Damn, I should have tied it! My ball cap tumbled to the floor and I quickly grabbed it and shoved it back on my head.

“Oh… my... God!” That squeal echoed into the tall ceilings. “Noah Greyson!” And I knew from the high octave shriek that followed my name, it was too late to run.

People in front of me were shoved out of the way. They stumbled several steps before shouting at the girl making a beeline for me. With flushed cheeks, she stopped right in front of me and gasped. “Oh my God! It is you!” Her sweaty hands grabbed onto my arm. I wanted to pull away from her, but I couldn’t. “Can I get a picture? I just love your music. It’s so beautiful and raw and just…” The stranger threw her arms around me like I was a long-lost friend and continued to ramble about my songs, my life, how much she loved me. Before I could respond, her camera was in my face. I smiled at the flash, and then she hugged me. Again. And then… she was off with her phone in hand and her fingers going crazy over the screen.

Sighing, I scrubbed a hand over my face before tugging on the bill of my cap to cover my eyes. Again, I knew I should have been grateful, not annoyed, but after months of touring and a fifteen-hour flight, I was just fucking tired.

Fame wasn’t what I thought it would be. Hell, life wasn’t what I thought it would be.

When I reached gate A-13, I checked the board and groaned. Delayed. Another roll of thunder rumbled through the building, kind of like a fuck you from Mother Nature, I guess. I went to take a seat but caught the flicker of the neon TGI Friday sign at the end of the corridor. I needed a little something to take the tension away. Who cared if it was only three in the afternoon, I thought. The tabloids all said I was a drunk anyway. I would have hated to let them down, so I headed straight inside to the bar.

The bartender busied himself by wiping the counter. He didn’t bother to look up when I dropped my carryon to the floor and pulled out a stool, and while some might have found that rude, I was just fine with it.

“What can I get you?” The monotone hum of his voice reminded me of that teacher off the Wonder Years.

“Whiskey. Neat.”

Without a word, he turned away, and I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened Facebook, and scrolled. There I sat, taking a glimpse into the lives of people I didn’t even fucking know… social media was such a weird thing.

“There,” the bartender said before I heard the clink of glass over the bar top.

“Thanks.” I kept scrolling while I downed the warm liquor, slamming the empty glass onto the counter when I finished. Cat meme. Political post. Some guy I used to be friends with… and then Facebook did a real number on me: Noah, share this memory from a year ago. A picture of me and Hannah lying on my bed. I posted that picture after I’d left town, hoping she’d see it. Hoping someone would tell her I hadn’t forgotten her, but I guess they didn’t. In the picture, I could see everything I tried to deny since I left Rockford— the kind of love I had for her was the kind you never fall out of.

Hannah Blake. I stared at her name in the tag bar. It was black when all the others were blue, because she blocked me almost a year ago. She cut me out of her life completely.

“Can I get another,” I asked, my eyes still glued to that picture, my chest tight with hurt and anger and all those awful emotions that knowing I lost her carried. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, and that was enough. It was like a tiny bomb went off in my head. Tattered reels of film shot flashbacks through my mind: her smile. Her lips. The dark. The promises… it was enough to give me that little jab in the chest that reminded me I was not a good person.

The bartender placed my second drink in front of me. I grabbed it and gulped it down. Has it really been over a year since she forced us from lovers to strangers?

I had a third drink—drown your sorrows, right? – then I headed to the crowded terminal to wait for my flight, ignoring the stares, the whispers, the flashes from cameras. I stared at that damn picture still pulled up on my phone. I thought about her at least once a day. Maybe that was pathetic, but some things you just can’t help. And I couldn’t forget her, even if her memory only reminded me of the person I once believed I was.

The person she taught me I wasn’t.

I really wasn’t…

After a two-hour flight filled with turbulence and a screaming kid, I stepped into my house.

There were no greetings. No warm smiles, because no one was there. When I was on tour, I was surrounded by people and noise. But not there. There I was nobody.

I tossed my keys onto the entrance table and rummaged through the stack of mail the housekeeper left by the lamp. Bill. Junk mail. Junk mail. A heavy manila envelope laid at the bottom of the stack, and when I turned it over, my heart kicked up a notch. H. Blake. No return address. Just her name.

An uneasy heat spread over my body. Fate was really trying to do a mindfuck on me that day. Jesus, I needed a beer. I made my way through the foyer and the formal living room that had never been used, through the dining room with the table that seated fourteen people—again never used—and I walked into the kitchen. I threw the letter down on the counter and grabbed a beer from the wine cooler, then popped the top and took a sip, my eyes locked on that damn envelope the entire time. Why now? It was all I could think when I picked it back up. I’m not sure why, but I ran my fingers over her name. Maybe because that was the closest I had come to touching her in so long, and as much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t give a shit about what happened, it bothered me.

I hated how things ended between us.

I always would.

My palms were slicked with sweat when I tore the envelope open. I thumbed through the handwritten pages, and the faint scent of amber and jasmine lifted into the air. Come on, Hannah. Did you really spray the pages with your perfume? Amber and Jasmine—Alien…Hannah’s the only person I’ve ever known to wear that. I used to stop in the mall and spray a sample of it on one of those little cards just to remember. I brought them to my nose and inhaled, and my eyes slammed shut. It was such a subtle way of forcing me to remember her. A brutal way, and it cut me to the bone, because I lost her. My chest grew tighter with each breath, like a boa constrictor wrapping around my heart. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry or just… I closed my eyes and breathed her scent in again. My stomach knotted.

I lost all of this.

I lost everything I knew I never deserved but almost had. And I couldn’t take that reminder. I walked to the garbage can and held the bundle of letters over the top. Hannah was in the past, and that’s where those emotions, those memories—the person I was with her –needed to stay. Before I tossed them, I caught one line that caused my heart to bang ceremoniously in my chest: I was only weak because I loved you. A dizzy heat all but drowned me.

Damn!

And just like that —like the proverbial damn bursting— everything rushed to the surface. As much as I knew it would hurt, I just needed to know. I wanted to believe I meant something to her, that there was something salvageable there. A love like that, it was something you either die from or ignore.

And how could I ignore it now? I couldn’t, so I glanced down at her letter:

Noah,

We were friends. Lovers. Soulmates… and very horrible people together.

I wonder, have you forgotten me by now? Have you forgotten the promises we made to each other?

Do you remember the person I became, how I fell for you even though I knew it would kill me to love someone like you? I knew better, Noah. I did. And this letter isn’t to admonish you or tear you down. No, it’s to make you see what you do to the people you say you care so deeply for.

When I was with you, you made me feel safe and loved and wonderful, but in the end, I felt stupid and so vulnerable. I want to believe you never meant to hurt me; that you never meant to make me hate you. I want to believe all the things you said were true, but it’s hard for me. With everything I’ve found out since we didn’t say goodbye, you must understand why I wish I could forget you.

I will forever hate that I was so weak for you, but I was only weak because I loved you. Despite it all.

I’ll always love you.

Hannah

Guilt tugged at my conscience. Taking a seat, I placed her letters face down on the table. I scrubbed my hand over my jaw, remembering… what sucked was the memory of our last kiss. How her eyes filled with tears, and she looked at me like I was everything she ever wanted and hated all at the same time.

I promised her I’d never hurt her, but I did.

Didn’t say goodbye. We didn’t say goodbye.